Villanova goes on road and hammers Seton Hall

Villanova's JayVaughn Pinkston (22) dunks the ball over several Seton Hall players as his team went on to win 83-67 in an NCAA college basketball game on Wednesday, Jan 8, 2014, in Newark, N.J. (AP Photo/Joe Epstein)

NEWARK, N.J. — It was one of those games which, on paper, looked like an easy victory for No. 8/10 Villanova. Jay Wright, of course, knew better and so did the Wildcats.

They’ve been through enough games like this over the last three years to take nothing for granted, even in the new Big East Conference.

It did not matter to Villanova that Seton Hall dropped a 13-point decision to Creighton in its last game or that the Pirates were without three of their top players because of injury.

“You know they’re going to scrap, shoot 3s and drive to the basket,” Wright said of the Pirates. “Those are tough games to win.”

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Not when you shoot better than 50 percent from the field, as the Wildcats did to pull a way for an 83-67 victory over the Pirates at the Prudential Center Wednesday night.

Villanova (14-1 overall, 3-0 Big East) connected on 52 percent of its attempts overall (26-for-50) and was even better from deep. The Wildcats shot 52.2 percent from 3-point land (12-for-23).

Then again, that’s nothing new. It was the third straight game in which the Wildcats shot better than 50 percent overall. They’re shooting 54.1 percent in that stretch.

“We’re doing a good job offensively,” Wright said. “We’re doing a good job of sharing the basketball. I think sometimes we turn it over too much, which helps our shooting percentage. When you throw it away, you don’t get the shot attempt. We do share the ball and we do a good job at finding good shots.”

The Wildcats are doing a better job of making those good looks, many of which are available because of JayVaughn Pinkston’s presence in the post.

Seton Hall chose to double the 6-7 junior, even though its three best defenders, 6-6 Fuquan Edwin, 6-9 Eugene Teague and 6-11 Aaron Geramipoor are out with a knee injury, concussion and sprained ankle, respectively. Pirates coach Kevin Willard decided to make the Wildcats win the game from the 3-point line.

Arcidiacono, whose offensive game has been inconsistent, added a season-high tying 14 points on a 5-for-10 effort that included shooting 3-for-8 from 3-point range.

“He’s kind of finding that balance of running the team and having a lot of good scorers around him and still being aggressive,” Wright said. “Last year, he had to score a lot more. This year, he doesn’t have to, but we want him to. I thought he found a good job of that tonight.”

Meanwhile, Pinkston did a good job of drawing the defense to him and then finding open shooters on the wing. He only finished with two assists, but his initial pass eventually led to an open shooter.

“I see how the defense is playing me,” Pinkston said. “I either attack it or kick it out for an open teammate.”

That’s helped the Wildcats and his game, too.

“He did a great job,” Wright said of Pinkston. “The first play of the game we went inside to JayVaughn and they trapped him and he turned it over. Every time after that he found the open man and made a play on the other side of the floor. He’s learning that to have a guy that the other team has to double team shows a lot of respect and it makes everybody better. You don’t get assists for that, but you really should because if it’s not for JayVaughn the other guys don’t get open.”

And if the Wildcats didn’t make shots, and enough plays on the defensive end, they would not have beaten the undermanned Pirates (10-5, 1-2). But they knew that. Villanova knew Seton Hall would scratch and fight and do everything in its power to keep its losing streak from reaching two games.

Brian Oliver did his best with a game-high 20 points. Patrik Auda and Sterling Gibbs added 13 points each, and Stephane Manga contributed nine points off the bench. That would have been good enough on most nights, but not Wednesday and certainly not against the Wildcats.

Villanova has been down this road and they don’t want to go back. Every time the Pirates made a run, the Wildcats had an answer.

“We know that on any given night we can lose a game,” Hilliard said. “You saw it in how we played in the first half. Seton Hall was right there. We could have easily slipped, but we didn’t. We kept grinding and got the win.”